ABSTRACT
Three-dimensional confinement in semiconductor quantum dots results in a discrete energy spectrum for charge carriers. This chapter shows that maximal spin alignment still consistent with Hund’s first rule can lead to different secondary maxima in the 0-T third shell addition energy spectrum depending on the actual electronic configurations in realistic vertical quantum dots (VQD). The different ways electrons fill shells depend sensitively on the three-dimensional nature of the VQD confinement, including small deviations from perfect parabolicity and circular symmetry, and the resulting complex Coulomb interactions between electrons. In atomic physics, Hund’s rules constitute a set of heuristic rules to determine the ground state of an N-electron atom provided the electronic configuration is known, and perfect degeneracy of the relevant states is not a rigid prerequisite to apply them. The key point here is that this spectrum also bares the signature of three parallel spin filling up to N = 9, and this is not in violation of Hund’s first rule.
